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I'm looking for a tablet or small notebook to use instead of hauling paper books around. I don't do much gigging--very little, actually. But I do sing for nursing homes occasionally or for special events at clubs and organizations now and then.
What advantages could I expect to enjoy by using MobileSheets instead of simply using a PDF reader with scrolling capability?
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10-11-2018, 01:46 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-11-2018, 01:47 AM by jeffn1.)
It is just so much easier to organize the songs, find them quickly, annotate the songs, create set lists, get the songs into the tablet, etc.
The price is so reasonable, in my opinion it's a no brainer.
(But I would consider splurging on a foot pedal page turner. That is a big difference from hand turning paper sheet music).
Jeff
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Okay...related questions (should I be putting these in a separate message? Sorry, if so!)
1. Can it be used on, say a Microsoft Surface Go running Windows 10?
2. How many songs will fit in 64 GB? What's the format?
3. Are they PDFs?
I want to be able to use it with sheet music as well as just words and chords.
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Hope my my answers are right. But, maybe read through other posts.
I would think the Surface (I think I read people using that) would work fine (with the Windows 10 version of MobileSheets).
I would think thousands (or more) of songs would fit on a 64 GB hard drive. (I think my larger Android tablet has 16gb, had been using one of 8 GB).
I think most people use pdfs (I do), but it does accept other file formats. [If I am wrong about anything, let Calia know. I am just an MS user, not affiliated)
Jeff
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Your answers are pretty accurate Jeff.
1) Yes, the Surface Go should work just fine.
2) It depends entirely on the file formats you use. If you use PDFs that are mostly black & white or grayscale with decent compression, you are going to be able to fit quite a few of them (depending upon how many pages they are). For example, I have a 13 page PDF that is 244 KB. If every PDF you used was the same as that, you could store ~275,000 pages on a 64 GB drive. If you use chord pro or text files, they will be considerably smaller than a PDF, so you could store massive amounts of songs on a 64 GB drive. Image files would most likely be larger than a PDF (depending upon whether they are compressed JPG or PNG), so you'd probably be able to store fewer of those.
3) PDF is the most common format and what I would recommend.
Mike
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Thanks, Jeff and Mike,
I think my next step is to try it out on my current laptop before springing for a tablet or notebook. Since I want to use it for gigging, I'd like it to be large enough to see easily, so I'm leaning toward a 10" or larger notebook running Windows 10. One that folds all the way over so I can use it like a tablet.
